The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens

 

4/10

I read this one a little less than three months ago. I recently discovered that Dickens wrote five short Christmas story books. The first was the well-known A Christmas Carol, but the other four I had never heard about. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain is the fifth of those five books. While there were some nice moments, it was far too disjointed and difficult to process. I was surprised that it was the last of the five books written because it feels like a book he may have written early in his career before honing his craft. I wouldn't recommend spending time on this one unless you want to read everything Dickens wrote.

I liked this moment and idea of God remembering us as his little children similar to how parents remember their grown children still as their little children:

    "'There is hope,' returned the old man, 'for all who are softened and penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh!' he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, 'I was thankful, only yesterday, that I could remember this unhappy son when he was an innocent child. But what a comfort it is, now, to think that even God himself has that remembrance of him!'

      ...

    "'Ah!' feebly moaned the man upon the bed. 'The waste since then, the waste of life since then!'

    "'But he was a child once,' said the old man. 'He played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at night, and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor mother's knee. I have seen him do it, many a time; and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her and me, to think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our hopes and plans for him were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, that nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better than the fathers upon earth! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by the errors of Thy children! take this wanderer back! Not as he is, but as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often seemed to cry to us!'" 

 

Another quote I liked: "'May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done us?' ... 'That we may forgive it.'"

 

And finally, Dickens straight up preaching eternal families:

"Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy - it's a silly fancy, William - they have some way I don't know of, of feeling for my little child, and me, and understanding why their love is precious to me. If I have been quiet since, I have been more happy, William, in a hundred ways. Not least happy, dear, in this - that even when my little child was born and dead but a few days, and I was weak and sorrowful, and could not help grieving a little, the thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good life, I should meet in Heaven a bright creature, who would call me, Mother!"

My updated rankings of Dickens books I've read:

1.  David Copperfield
2.  A Tale of Two Cities
3. Great Expectations
4. Oliver Twist
5. Bleak House
6. A Christmas Carol
7. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
8. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain